


Third Street Laundry

by allheadybooks



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1920s, F/F, Gay Bar, M/M, Prohibition, Smuggling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:45:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allheadybooks/pseuds/allheadybooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I thought about just leaving them to it--Chin's business is Chin's business, and I had about a ton of cheongsams sitting dirty by the wash bucket--but I thought McGarrett might be here on the business kind of business, and Third Street Laundry may be Chin's business but it's my business too, if you see what I mean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Prohibition AU that was _never supposed to happen_. I blame imaginarycircus.

This story begins on the day that Mr. Steven McGarrett, ex-Navy Commander, walked into the laundry run by my cousin and benefactor, Mr. Chin Ho Kelly of Third Street. I was elbow-deep in a tub of boiled soap, cussing away in a most unladylike manner, and I didn't hear him over the noise of automobiles in the street until he leaned over the counter and snorted rudely.

"You, girl," he said. "You speak English?" Then, taking me for Chinese like so many white people do, he asked the same in Mandarin--poorly spoken, but it's the thought that counts, I suppose.

"I don't know," I said, wiping my raw hands on my apron, "what does this sound like?"

"Funny," he huffed, and put his big hands flat on the counter. He was tall and muscular, with a few days scruff on his face, and I would have placed him as a grunt from the docks if it weren't for the way he stood--as if used to command. He smelled like fish and pitch, either way.

"You want me to wash those for you, mister, you better have something else to wear," I said, eyeing his frayed blue suit. "'Less you want to stand around in the nude all afternoon."

"What?" His eyebrows crunched together in a scowl. "No. I'm here to see the owner--Kelly. Where is he?"

"Oh, you mean my cousin Chin Ho," I said, and frowned. "He's out on delivery right now. I can give him a message for you, though. You can write it down if you like," I added, though frankly I would've been surprised if he could write more than an X.

"I know he's here," the man said, and raised both his eyebrows with an air of menace. "I know your business, girl. Do I look like a fool to you?" He knocked his jacket aside at the hip, letting me see the glint of a Smith and Wesson in a battered leather holster. "I know Kelly's here. And I'm going to see him."

*****

I see I've missed the beginning slightly.

Third Street Laundry is indeed a laundry, as the name suggests: we have rack after rack of men's shirts and ladies' dresses, tubs of suds and starch kept hot all day, and then there's me, Kono Kalakaua, in a white uniform at the front counter. You'd walk right past it if you didn't know what to look for. We're the kind of laundry that keeps two sets of books--one for the handful of clients that keep me busy out front in case any cops drop by, and one for the rest of our business, which takes place in the basement behind a locked door.

Third Street Laundry is also a bootlegger's.

Not that I get to do any of the bootlegging myself, of course. Never mind that I'm as strong as any man my size, and fast too--Chin says he couldn't stand to see his baby cousin shot at or locked up, and there's no arguing with him when he gets that way. I do the bookkeeping, though, and I meet all kinds of colorful people, and I'm as independent as a woman could hope to be. Mr. McGarrett's gun was hardly the first I'd seen, and I told him so.

"Mister," I said, "that ain't the first gun I've seen."

He just looked at me, hard, his hand wide at his hip like an Old West gunslinger, and asked again, "Where's Kelly?"

"This way," I said, waving him behind the counter. It was ten steps to the basement door and I watched his stance as he walked: big strides, favoring his right leg slightly. "Here," I said, and handed him the key ring off my belt. He was almost silent, unlocking the door and swinging it open; he lifted the knob to take the weight off the hinges, not like he meant to but like it was a matter of long training. I was already shifting into position to buckle his knee and trip him down the stairs when he stepped out of the doorway and waved me ahead of him.

"Ladies first," he said, with a harsh smile.

"Uh-huh," I said, and clattered down the stairs. "Chin!" I shouted, "you've got a visitor!" Chin knew what that phrase meant, so by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs he had a shotgun braced on his left forearm and a mean look on his face. Then the stranger ducked his head down into sight and saluted, actually saluted, and Chin dropped the barrel and broke into a grin.

"McGarrett!" he cried out. McGarrett half-shoved me out of the way and rushed into a back-slapping hug. They looked like long-lost brothers, Chin's arms around McGarrett's neck and McGarrett nearly lifting Chin off his feet. I crossed my arms and scowled.

*****

"So after they shot my pop," McGarrett said, with a pause to drag hard on his roll-up, "I took a couple of 'em down and got out of there. So far as I know they ain't caught up with me yet."

I wriggled, perched on a washtub full of still liquor. The boys were crouched on crates of fortified wine from our farmers upstate, telling each other their life stories. According to Chin, they were buddies from way back--played stickball in the same street gang. His old man got shot by the organized Italians in New York just for doing business in the wrong neighborhood, which was awful and all, but meanwhile the door upstairs was wide open where anybody could walk in.

"Chin," I said, just interrupting because it wasn't like anybody gave a damn I was there anyway, "the door's open upstairs."

"Go shut it," Chin said, without bothering to look at me.

McGarrett did, though, for the first time since we'd paraded down the stairs. He was squinting like mad, half-bearded and trailing smoke, tanned some places and sunburnt others and weathered like a man who's spent half his life at sea.

"Don't mind me," he said, and I thought for him that might be politeness, so I just stood up and went to put the "Closed" sign in the grimy shop window.

I thought about just leaving them to it--Chin's business is Chin's business, and I had about a ton of cheongsams sitting dirty by the wash bucket--but I thought McGarrett might be here on the business kind of business, and Third Street Laundry may be Chin's business but it's my business too, if you see what I mean. Maybe you don't. If there was action going down, I wasn't about to sit upstairs and twiddle my thumbs

While I was gone they'd popped a jug of wine and were drinking out of tin cups. I slid back in and sat on my washtub, just listening.

"...that bull down the docks," McGarrett was saying, "he's a stubborn son of a bitch. You can offer him a bigger and bigger cut 'till you're blue in the face, and he'll just spit a cigar end at you and cuss."

"Hmm," Chin said. "The one unbribeable cop in metro Detroit, huh?"

"Here's the dish," McGarrett said, taking the last sizzling pull on his roll-up. "I talked to my mulligan over in Corktown--he says everybody on the force knows about Detective Williams. He's married to this high and mighty piece out of England--or was--they've got a baby and all, and a couple years back she up and disappears. No trace. Wasn't a kidnapping either, she took everything with her--clothes, jewelry, you name it. Except the baby."

"Jesus." Chin put his cup down and looked off at nothing, and I knew he was thinking about Malia. He does that now and again. She couldn't take the life--not everybody can.

"He never married again, either," McGarrett said. "It's just him and that kid. And his attitude. I tell you, I'm getting nowhere with him."

"But if we can get around the bull--" Chin said.

"It's just Lake St. Clair between us and all the Canadian whisky we can carry. Think about it, Kelly. No more of this swill," he said, lifting his cup and grinning. "Real whisky like you used to get. No joke."

"No joke," Chin said, and whistled. "So, what--your boat, my connections--what else do we need?"

"Well, it's a three-man job. The two of us to load cargo and sail the thing, and a third man on the shore with a signal--in case it's not safe to dock."

"We'll find a third man, then," Chin said, and before I knew I'd opened my mouth I was hearing myself shout "Who says?"

"Kono!" Chin said, like I was a child throwing a tantrum.

"It's bad enough we're working with this haole rumrunner. The bigger this gets, the more dangerous it is. You know that."

"Yeah." Chin sighed and rubbed at the bags under his eyes.

"I'll do it," I said. Chin sighed again, this time impatiently, and McGarrett snorted smoke out his nose.

"I will," I said again, but McGarrett was shaking his head.

"You got to be alone on the shore all night, strong enough to haul crates of whisky down the docks with us--no, nothing doing."

"You think I can't?" I said.

"Kono, we've talked about--" Chin started.

"No," I said, "you need strong, you need fast, you need somebody you can trust--you got me."

"It ain't just sitting there," McGarrett warned. "Can you take down a full-sized man?"

"Sure," I said, and stood up. Nobody ever thinks much about washerwomen--but if they did they'd probably notice that in addition to callouses and peeling skin we've got arms like men and shoulders to match. I'm a fast runner, too, and a slippery opponent--you have to be in our line of work, and besides, it's not just men who grow up running in street gangs. I knew a few tricks they don't teach you in finishing school.

McGarrett stood up too, and squared on me. Chin made a noise like he was going to stop us, but I waved him quiet without taking my eyes off McGarrett's. He had these steel eyes that never left you--like they snapped on and wouldn't let you go. His jaw went all stiff and solid, and then he lunged kind of sideways, twisting around my left side.

I felt his fingers on my wrist and whipped it out of the way, driving my elbow into his gut. I picked up one foot to kick him in the kneecap, but he shouldered me off balance before I could get it under me again and I went down on my back, the breath slamming out of me. In the time it took me to get some air back in my lungs, he started to lean, hand out, either to keep me down or help me up--so I aimed my boots at his belt and kicked like a mean horse.

"Christ!" McGarrett gasped. I drew back and kicked again, this time at his knees. I could feel my skirt hiking up over my knickers, but I didn't give a damn because McGarrett was buckling, losing his balance, and tripping backwards over a crate.

"Huh," Chin said. I hopped to my feet and squared up again, but McGarrett was just lying there on the floor, propped up on his elbows, grinning like a kid. His eyebrows drew up and his face broke out handsome, soft somehow under the stubble.

"Hey, Kelly," he said, "I think we found our third man."

*****

Things happened slower than I expected. We spent nearly a week just making visits to all the gin joints we were hooked up with, cashing old debts and scraping together enough dough for the first run. Meanwhile I kept scrubbing and McGarrett came by every day to help Chin make the rounds--always in that same blue suit. He seemed to appreciate getting his lights knocked out, though, because he stopped calling me "girl" and started calling me "Miss Kono," with a tip of his ratty cap.

Somehow it got to be Saturday, and we were sitting around the desk where I do all the bookkeeping, debating how to handle the inconvenient detective--some of us more heatedly than others--when there was a knock on the office door. Chin looked at McGarrett, who shrugged, and we all at once moved to check the room, but there was nothing out in the open--and anyway, if the police were in the building we were sunk already. They both stood warily, and silently agreed that Chin would be the one to open the door.

The person in the doorway wasn't dressed like a bull, but she wasn't dressed like anybody I'd ever seen, either. She wore trousers, like a man, and a tweed vest with two points jutting down to her hips and, underneath that, a soft white shirtwaist that was somehow more feminine than the laundry dress I was still wearing. She cocked her hip against the doorframe, jacket draped over one shoulder, and said "Third Street Laundry, huh? This front is a dump."

"Who you calling a dump?" Chin said, and then, more slowly, "and who you calling a front?" He settled back on his heels and sized her up, and my belly panged its familiar pang--what if he married and left me out on the street--before I remembered that he would never do that, even if it weren't for Malia. Besides, when I looked closer, it wasn't a romantic kind of look at all, no matter the keen way she was draped across the doorway. She might as well have been the man her clothes were made for.

"Don't worry, fellas," she said, breezing into the room, "we're in the same business. I'm here representing what the papers call an underworld establishment, so don't hide the booze on my account."

McGarrett settled back at this, taking a seat on the edge of Chin's desk and crossing his arms over his chest. "Uh huh," he drawled, and even if I hadn't known him long I knew that face meant he was looking for a reason not to trust you.

"Let me tell you a little story," the woman said, rolling up her sleeves. "Say there's this dance spot downtown, the notorious kind. The kind you gotta know somebody to get in. You read me?"

"Sure," Chin said.

"And say," she went on, talking with her small pale hands, "say this joint is in the habit of serving the better class of bootleg." She paused, holding her nails up in front of her face as if to check them. "And having said that, say this joint's supplier is now in Wayne County Jail thanks to an overzealous detective of our mutual acquaintance."

"Who are you?" McGarrett barked. His feet were flat on the floor, thighs tensed--he looked ready to spook.

Then the woman caught my eye and smiled, slightly, with just the corner of her mouth. I'd been staring, or must have been, and I looked away quickly, tugging at the pockets of my dress.

"Kaye," she said, fast and confident. "Miss Jenna Kaye. Look me up--it's Kaye's on Broad Street. Everybody who's the right kind of anybody knows it. When you're ready to talk business, I could use people like you."

McGarrett huffed out a breath. He was still poised, still tense, but I'd been watching him when she said "Kaye's" and I'd seen the quick flicker, almost a flinch, pass over his face. Must be some kind of gin mill--but it wasn't a surprise I'd never heard of it. A new speakeasy opens up every week around here, and not half of them last any time at all. This one might be worth looking into.

"Pleased to meet you, Kelly, McGarrett, Miss Kono." She ducked her head to me. If she'd been wearing a hat she would've tipped it. I felt warm suddenly, watching her walk away, jacket swinging behind her, and I thought: maybe I ought to give Kaye's a visit soon. That night, even--and maybe I ought to do it alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Hawaiian pidgin correctly without being a douchey white mainlander about it is hard enough.  Writing _period-accurate, Detroit-inflected, emigrant Hawaiian pidgin_ is even harder. Correct me if you know what it should be but I can't imagine that anybody does. [This is Clara Bow chopping up her day dress](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vgMWGe444); [this is the apron Jenna is wearing in the bar scene](http://www.unsungsewingpatterns.net/2011/07/pictorial-review-3160-ladies-and-misses.html).

I was worried about sneaking in, but as it turned out, I didn't have to--I could tell from the crowd outside that it was one of the really notorious kinds of places where black rubbed elbows with white, women and men both and some of those looking like the other. It was also hardly the grandest ballroom in Detroit. I thought I'd got the wrong directions at first: house after house, getting more and more like shacks as you went, and then I turned a corner and heard dancing music. You'd only know it by the crowd--no sign, no nothing, just peeling sideboards and an open screen door. Kaye's was nothing but a blind pig.

"Hey," I asked one of the girls smoking a cigarette on the porch, "you seen Miss Kaye around?"

"Hey yourself," she said, and held her gasper out to me. "You want a drag, honey?"

"Sure," I said. She was tall, blonde, the kind of pretty that might shift into plain when she hit twenty-five. She had tobacco flakes stuck to her pink lipstick and pink lipstick stuck to her cigarette. I felt it on my lips when I took a drag.

"Have a drink with me," she said, and looked down the front of me at my dress. I blushed, hot on my face and neck, knowing what I looked like. I'd tried--lace collar and cuffs, my Sunday hat with the trim on and no stockings at all--but a laundry dress is a laundry dress. I knew a girl who took scissors to hers, like Clara Bow in 'It'--and she went around looking like a hobo in heels for months. Even the best seamstress can't make glad rags out of a laundry dress.

"Aw, thanks," I said, "but I gotta find Miss Kaye. You seen her?"

"Who?" the girl said. She leaned back and gave me room to breathe, finally.

"Miss Kaye," I said. "Kaye's. You know. The owner."

"Oh, it's just called that," she says. "K's. Guy owns it, nobody can say his name, it's something foreign. Starts with a K. Get it?"

"Sure," I said, but I didn't. Anyway, she wasn't looking at me anymore--she'd already turned to lean half off the porch and wave her cigarette to another girl, a mulatto in a red dress with sequins on. She's going to catch something nasty passing her ciggies around like that, I thought, and pushed forward into the house.

"Whoa, kaikuahine," said the wall in front of me. "You want to knock somebody on they behind?" I wobbled back on my heels and looked up.

"Sorry, kaikua'ana," I said to the oversized bow tie at eye level. There was a man in it, I was pretty sure, but I couldn't look too close because my brain was busy trying to figure out what was strange about this conversation.

The man in the bow tie grinned like to break his big round face. "Nah! You kama'aina! Welcome to my humble underworld establishment! We got all kind of hooch, on the house." I watched my hand disappear into both of his, bracing myself, but he just clasped it gently and shook his head like he couldn't believe it. "What's your name, sugar?"

 

"Kono," I said, "Kono Kalakaua."

"Well, Miss Kono," he said, "I got a drink here you got to try. Call it Da Kine." He leaned closer and smiled at me. "Got pineapple in it."

"Sure," I said, laughing, and let him drag me along to the bar. I barely had time to wonder why all the girls were dancing with girls--there were plenty of fellas in a clump on the other side of the floor--before we landed in front of a banged-up old counter with a row of dirty glasses on it and who else but Miss Jenna Kaye holding a rag behind it.

"Hey Kamekona, what'll it be?" she said, and then her eyes slid sideways and she dropped her rag.

"Uh," she said.

"Miss Kaye!" I said. Then we just looked at each other for a while. She kind of half-smiled, and shook her bobbed hair out of her eyes. She was wearing a gray apron, tattered and homemade, and her sleeves were rolled up over lean strong forearms glittering with blonde down. She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward over the bar. I thought for a moment she would take my hand in hers, but she didn't--she just winked, unashamed, and knocked a pile of peanut shells down into the sawdust on the floor.

"You pour the hooch here, huh?" I asked.

She nodded and grinned at me. "He try to poison you with that pineapple thing yet?"

"Oh--no," I said, and turned to the man in the bow tie--Kamekona. "Is it really that bad?"

"Bad?" he scoffed. "It da kine!" He tilted his head to one side, then another, and offered, "Not too many people order it twice, though."

Miss Kaye and I both laughed, and then stopped all of a sudden, looking at each other.

"Why don't I give you a break, huh?" Kamekona said, and cleared his throat meaningfully. "You see Max, tell him he's behind the bar tonight. He probably can handle it."

"Sure," Miss Kaye said. She tossed her apron across the bar and made room for Kamekona to pass. She wore half a suit, just shirt and trousers, and when she came around to stand next to me I saw that her shoes were two-tone Oxfords, and big, like she'd bought them from a man's store.

"We should get properly introduced," she said, and held a hand out to me. "I'm Jenna."

"Kono," I said, and shook it. She didn't let go but instead turned the handshake into something else. I felt her hand in mine, callous on callous. Her knuckles drew bluntly along my own.

"There's a back room," she said. "For our very best customers. Wanna see?"

Lest you think I'm some kind of dumb Dora, I was starting to cotton on, finally. I'd never been to a place like this before. You don't see a lot of them, not even in my line of work--and anyway I found out later that most of these joints aren't quite so colorful. You couldn't blame me for not knowing, not with kama'aina giants in bow ties and striking women dressed like men and the pianist banging out ragtime like there was no tomorrow. But when she took my hand I knew. Her palm was soft and damp and trembling, and the way she looked at me--well. I felt beautiful.

I let her pull me along behind her. We passed dancers and drinkers, flappers and tough mugs and dope fiends. The place was a whirl of loud piano and sweat and tea smoke, but against the soft electricity of our fingers tangling it might have been all dust and moths. I barely noticed where we were until she shut a door behind me and locked it tight.

"Here," she said against the shell of my ear, "we can talk a little here. It's quieter." I felt the door against my back, my hair catching on the raw wood, and then her lips, falling gently against the soft skin behind my ear. Her breath on my neck, my hands coming up to crease the shoulders of her shirtwaist--it was all one moment, all one thing together, the two of us touching like that.

Then somebody spat, and I heard the distinct sound of a cigar end falling plop in a pile of sawdust.

*****

"For the love of God, Jake, warn a guy," Jenna said, and puffed yellow smoke. Jake was sharing his cigars, at least. He'd invited us to join his poker game, too, once Jenna told the other guy she'd wipe that leer off his fat stinking face if he didn't go screw, and fast. Jake was okay, she said--Jake was square--and, she whispered while he was dealing the cards, queer as a three-dollar bill. Nothing to worry about.

"Sure thing, Kaye," Jake said. He was square-faced, anyway, broad and mean-looking like a puffed-up rooster. A couple blond curls tried to escape from his Brylcreem, without much luck. "Deal me."

Jenna slung the cards out onto the table. Her fingers were long, white, thick-knuckled. I picked my eyes up, finally, and found myself watching her hair--the way her sharp bob curled at the edges, like she'd been swimming, or sweating--and I thought of the taste of it, salt and lakewater.

"You're up," Jake said.

"Fold," I said.

Jenna grinned. "Good thing we're not playing for money. You'd bleed us dry, Jake."

"What? You think I would do that to a lady? No no no, my friend, I may not be the most civilized guy in the world but I do have a mother and she taught me some manners." His hands crashed around on the table in front of us, and he didn't bother to put his cigar down first, either. A couple sparks sprayed into the air and winked out.

"I," he went on, "am a level guy. Right?"

"Sure," Jenna said, and shot me a small smile. I felt the toe of her shiny shoes slide gently across the bare skin of my calf. I tingled all over but didn't say a thing.

We played a couple more hands like that, Jake playing a ruthless game and talking enough for all three of us, all by himself. I thought he might be a stick-up guy at first--he had the look of it--but he didn't sound local, and I couldn't get a read on him. He said he worked in a bank but I could tell already that K's was the kind of place where nobody was exactly who they said they were.

Jake was still winning when somebody kicked the door in. I had a good hand, too--two queens and a couple of eights--but the cards flew out of my fingers when I heard a solid blow crack the old wood around the bolt.

"Jesus!" Jenna yelled. I was standing before I knew it, one hand on the rung of my chair, the other groping around on the table behind me for anything I could use as a weapon. Jake was aiming a snubnose Colt like he knew how to use it, one arm braced on the other. Whoever it was landed one more solid kick and the door popped inward, like a latch had slipped. It wasn't as dramatic as you'd think--the door just swung open like the curtain going up at the theater. Then there he was in the doorway, Smith and Wesson in hand, and his face was as tight and cold as I'd ever seen it--like something went to sleep inside and left the rest of him ticking along like a machine.

"McGarrett," Jake said.

"Detective," McGarrett said.

"What?" I said.


End file.
